


to love what is mortal;

by donnamosss



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, listen. it's been almost 2 months now and i wanna know when the 100 is gonna Let Me Live My Life, please free me from this Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 16:23:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6617701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnamosss/pseuds/donnamosss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>her heart aches for lexa, for the young girl she never got to be and for the woman she is now, forged in battle and caked in blood but still utterly good to the core, and her heart aches for costia, for the way her young and bright and beautiful life was cut short all because she dared to love and be loved by the commander, and her heart aches for doomed and tragic first loves and star-crossed and hesitant second loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to love what is mortal;

_to live in this world_

_you must be able_  
_to do three things:_  
_to love what is mortal;_  
_to hold it_

_against your bones knowing_  
_your own life depends on it;_  
_and, when the time comes to let it go,_  
_to let it go._

_-_ mary oliver, from "in blackwater woods"

 

lexa is sprawled on clarke’s couch when she returns from a day full of meetings and negotiations and arguments and headaches and she can barely stifle a grin despite her exhaustion and her pounding temples. whatever is between them is still new and unnamed and a little fragile, and clarke tries not to feel overwhelmed and a little terrified by how _right_ it feels to open her door and see lexa waiting for her, tries not to think too much about what it means that seeing her there feels an awful lot like coming home. instead, clarke just flops on the couch next to her,

 

“aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” clarke says, and she sounds just as tired as she feels.

 

lexa just chuckles as clarke settles into the crook of her arm and sighs contentedly. she winds a piece of clarke’s hair around her finger and they both enjoy the rare moment of peace, of silence, of being alone and together and relatively unburdened. they haven’t talked about what they _are_ , not yet, but they both know that whatever it is it is big and it is important and it is life-altering. and since every decision they’ve each had to make in their young lives has been big and important and life-altering, whether they intended it to be or not, there is something satisfying about being content to just _be_ , to lie with each other on couches and press lazy kisses to each other’s mouths and to tangle up together at night and soothe one another’s nightmares without worrying about what it all _means_. (anyway, they both know what it means, have always known just what they are to each other, or at least have the potential to be).

 

“you are an artist, clarke,” lexa says, and it is quiet but firm. it is not a question.

 

“mmmhmm,” clarke murmurs, shifting slightly to face lexa, confusion evident on her face.

 

“i have seen your work,” lexa says, nodding towards the portfolio still propped on the chair in the corner. clarke’s drawing of lexa peeks out from where she had hastily stuffed it to keep it from titus’ probing eyes. it had felt too intimate, too private, to share with anyone but the subject.

 

lexa shifts now, sitting up, and she is clearly nervous, practically timid. clarke sits up too, wondering where this could possibly be going. lexa looks down, twists her fingers in her lap. whatever she is about to say, it is clear it has been weighing on her mind for awhile, perhaps since she first saw clarke’s sketch of her.

 

“i have…a request, if that is alright” she says, glancing up from her lap to briefly meet clarke’s eyes, “i wondered if you would be able to draw costia as you did me. i could…describe her to you,” lexa’s voice is gentle, hopeful, apprehensive.

 

“oh, lexa,” clarke says quietly, grabbing her hand. her first reaction is to say no, to say she’s so sorry but she can’t do it. it feels too heavy and too important and too much to agree to this, to put charcoal to paper and try to tease out a representation of the first girl lexa ever loved, the girl clarke knows was more important to her than anything in the world. she almost, almost says no but she sees this glimmer of hope in lexa’s eyes and she remembers that the grounders don’t have cameras, that they don’t sit for portraits, that lexa probably has no tangible evidence that costia ever existed, nothing but her quickly fading memories and maybe a few trinkets and a slowly healing hole in her heart. clarke’s breath catches in her throat and she squeezes lexa’s hand and she’s nodding her head before she can stop herself, trying not to think about what it means that she wants to do everything she can to ease lexa’s pain, to slap bandages over all the parts of her that hurt. instead, she focuses on lexa’s slow shy grin and on the earnest and gentle kiss she presses to her lips.

 

//

 

lexa nervously presents clarke with new charcoals and a fresh canvas ( _from the finest stand in polis_ , she tells her, proudly) and settles into the chair next to her. the doors are locked and the guards have been instructed they are only to be opened in an emergency and sunlight is spilling through the windows and lexa is taking a deep breath before launching into a description. clarke had expected lexa to be guarded, expected that she would have to ask questions about specifics, expected that she would practically have to pry information out of her. but lexa offers everything openly, tells clarke about the tight curls of costia’s hair and how they looked spread on the floor of the forest when they would lay together and invent constellations, about the flare of costia’s nose, about the furrow she got in her brow when she was planning something (and she always was, lexa laughs), the purse of her lips when she was worried, the boom of her laugh and the steadiness of her hands and the dark dark brown of her eyes, about the little scar she had above her eyebrow that she got from falling out of a tree when they were seven (blood running down costia’s face and lexa, terrified and tear-streaked, calling for costia’s mother while costia made silly faces to reassure her). clarke can hardly move her hand fast enough, tries to capture the costia lexa describes, full of laughter and of gentleness and of love and of _life_. she knows that lexa is letting her in on something private, something precious and tender and so so important, that lexa is telling her things that she has probably never told anyone else, and she wants to do this _right_ , and so she listens intently and traces and retraces lines and lets costia’s face bloom in black and white on the canvas lexa had shakily pressed into her hands.

 

when it is done lexa holds her breath as clarke passes it to her, and clarke almost has to look away because she is so nervous, so afraid that she didn’t get the curve of costia’s smile or the light in her eyes right, but lexa looks up at her and her eyes are wet and wild and bright and she is saying _thank you clarke_ in that breathless way she has, like she can’t quite believe what’s happening is real, like maybe she doesn’t deserve it (clarke is filled with the sudden desire to make sure lexa knows just how much she deserves happiness, forever). lexa’s eyes snap back to the canvas and clarke watches her trace the dark lines hesitantly, reverently, and her heart aches. her heart aches for lexa, for the young girl she never got to be and for the woman she is now, forged in battle and caked in blood but still utterly _good_ to the core, and her heart aches for costia, for the way her young and bright and beautiful life was cut short all because she dared to love and be loved by the commander, and her heart aches for doomed and tragic first loves and star-crossed and hesitant second loves.

 

when she finally speaks her voice is thick and quiet, almost a whisper, almost a prayer, “did i get her right?”

 

lexa’s eyes are shining when they meet clarke’s, shining with love and with grief and with something else—maybe hope, “she would have liked you, you know,” she says.

 

clarke swallows, nods, knows that this is about the highest compliment lexa can give another person.

 

“thank you, clarke,” lexa says, again, her voice steadier and stronger and when she kisses clarke it feels a little like a promise and a little like absolution and a lot like a new beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> i also suffer on tumblr @sapphiclexas


End file.
